MINDING
YOUR BODY 2003
Childbirth
Alternatives
More
women seek midwifery care.
By
Bobbie Willis
Mainstream scenes of childbirth often go straight
to the cold starkness of the delivery room, the technological buzz
of monitoring devices, the pain of labor and the doctor's gentle-firm
direction to "push, push."
Another scene involves "scheduling" births as cesarean
sections. The c-section rate in the United States is a staggering
24 percent; more and more of these c-sections are done for "convenience,"
rather than necessity.
But pregnant women in Oregon may choose from a range
of childbirth alternatives, namely midwifery, to these scenes. Midwives
generally place a great deal of focus on creating a birth experience
that is different from the mainstream scenes. According to Jan Tritten,
owner of Midwifery Today, Inc. and editor-in-chief of Midwifery
Today magazine, the "midwifery model of care," focuses on the
true definition of midwife — to be "with woman." It strives
to keep the process of childbirth focused on the mother's needs
and wants, as well as on the safety and well-being of both mother
and baby. The midwifery model of care aims to decrease the number
of medical and technological interventions in birth, instead allowing
the body to birth as naturally and instinctively as possible. This
kind of a birth experience, Tritten says, can be extremely empowering
for a woman.
According to statistics from the Midwives Alliance
of North America, Oregon is the only state in the country where
all forms of midwifery education and practice are considered valid.
There is no mandatory licensure or certification in this state,
meaning that there are a range of choices for mothers. Mothers may
choose where to have their babies — say, at home instead of
at the hospital — as well as the type of practitioner they
want to have providing care.
Direct-entry midwives are exactly that — people
who decide to enter directly into the practice of midwifery, training
through observation, apprenticeship, and perhaps some formal, in-class
workshops or continuing education programs.
Certified professional midwives (CPMs) expand, in
terms of formal training, on the direct-entry model. CPMs may come
in as direct-entry midwives, but they also make the choice to continue
their formal education in programs accredited by the Midwifery Education
Accreditation Council.
Certified nurse midwives (CNMS) are midwives with
background and training in nursing. They have been tested and certified
in midwifery according to the nationally held standards of the American
College of Nurse Midwives (ACNM). Kathie Scott Hill, CNM with McKenzie
Midwifery & Women's Services, P.C., says that certified nurse
midwives have "full prescriptive authority." She also says, "We
have a more family-centered approach to birth. We believe that women…
are the experts on childbirth."
Within midwifery, there is a continuing debate on
the best training and background that provides optimum care and
service for mothers. But there is no doubt that this childbirth
alternative is gaining in popularity. According ACNM statistics,
the percentage of vaginal, in-hospital births overseen by nurse
midwives has grown from .6 percent in 1975 to nearly 10 percent
in the year 2000, meaning women are seeking out and taking advantage
of alternatives to the mainstream.
 |
| David
Koteen gives a ride to Kim Christensen |
Be
in Touch
Contact
Improvisation thrives in Eugene.
By
Ben Fogelson
If you've ever felt pestered by an absolute need
to have a certain amount of personal space around your body, or
if you've ever felt repressed by your taught hesitancy to touch
another human being; if you've ever been frustrated by your unfulfilled
desire to fly with another person, dance and hold someone's weight,
you might shrug free from those heavy chains and try out one of
Eugene's touchiest dance forms, Contact Improvisation.
"Contact Improvisation," says David Koteen, longtime
Eugene artist and contact practitioner, "is a duet movement form,
originated by choreographer Steve Paxton in 1972, based on the communication
between two bodies that are in physical contact, and their combined
relationship to the physical laws governing their motion —
gravity; momentum; friction; inertia; centrifugal force; etc."
Experiencing Contact for the first time can be challenging,
certainly for Westerners, who are traditionally
taught to reserve touching for relatively few life experiences.
"It's an American martial art with no defense," says Koteen. Dancers
roll on each other, spin, swing, carry and are carried, in an awareness
activity where the dancers monitor and play with their continually
moving point of touch.
|
Jam
and Workshop Schedule:
Wednesdays
Contact Jam—5:30 pm, Agate
Hall, 18th Ave. and Agate St. 343-2913.
Sundays
Contact Jam—10 am, Gerlinger
Annex, UO, $3. 517-1897.
Contact Workshop the third Sunday each
month (1/19 this month), Eugene School of Ballet. 517-1897.
Contact workshop Feb. 23 with Amy Impellizzeri
and Margo Van Ummersen, as part of the Eugene Dance Festival,
3:30 pm, WOW Hall. 517-1897.
Upcoming Performances:
Feb. 7 — Contact Improvisation
performance and jam as part of the First Friday ArtWalk, 5:30
pm, former Alder Gallery, next to Lazar's Bazar on W. Broadway
Ave. Audience encouraged to participate.
March 8 — Children's Contact Concert,
10:30 am, Beall Hall, UO.
UO Classes:
M-W 3 pm, Rm. 350, Gerlinger, UO dance
Dept. Spaces still available to Jan. 20 attendees. 517-1897.
Breitenbush Hot Springs Jams:
Spring Jam, March 6-14, 342-3273.
Fall Jam, 687-5780.
|
Amy Impellizzeri, technical director of Dougherty
Dance Theatre and adjunct faculty member at the UO Dept. of Dance,
describes her experience of when she was a Contact newbie. "Prior
to 1996, I was more than apprehensive about Contact. I didn't
want to dance with people I didn't know. I liked my own personal
space bubble and Contact required that space to shrink to nothing.
I observed and thought it looked fun, but touching people whose
names and voices I didn't know? Not for me," she says.
"My immediate snap judgement bothered me. I watched
some more, took a class. I went to the Wednesday night jam. I body-surfed,
rolled, fell, flew, spun and laughed. New life squished into me.
All with people I didn't know. I was devout immediately," says Impellizzeri.
One way to think about Contact is two or more people
unceasingly and alternately inhabiting the roles of "climber" and
"shelf." You might say it's a very "supportive" activity. "I support
you;" says Koteen, "you support me; you want to ride; I want to
carry. It's non-gender specific and includes people of all ages,
sizes, physical handicaps and is truly available to anyone who wants
to participate. The best example of democracy in action."
Koteen's a contributor to the lives of numerous
local artists and art projects, and as a provider of art he likewise
promotes the availability of spaces for Contact. Steward of the
5:30 pm Wednesday night Agate Hall jams, Koteen invites the public
to experience Contact for themselves: "As part of my Contact tithe,
I make a practice of keeping the (Wed.) jam free to the public.
It's been the most healthful, joyful, ongoing lovely, inspirational
activity I've found. So don some comfortable easy moving-in clothes,
and enjoy a light-hearted laughter-laced, literally uplifting …
dance."
Impellizzeri adds, like an Eastern scholar, some
last insights into Contact, and what could be considered, by some,
its rules, "Take care of yourself, and extend that care to your
partner(s)."
Movement
Theater
The
bold athleticism of BodyVox.
By
Aria Seligmann
Years of cross-training in different dance styles
and body building combine with a brilliantly creative theatrical
sense to form BodyVox, the Portland-based dance company that's among
the most innovative in the world. The company was formed in 1997
by husband-wife choreographers Jamey Hampton and Ashley Roland,
who have more than 20 years experience dancing and choreographing
with companies internationally. They've danced with Pilobolus and
Momix, and formed another company, ISO, in 1986. In addition, the
duo has won Emmys for television work, choreographed music videos,
and won awards for choreography film.
Innovation is the word.
"Like a painter keeps painting, we're compelled
to keep exploring the form. It's a continuing evolution of an artistic
vision," says Hampton. He and Roland have been dancing together
for such a long time that not only are they compatible in that,
says Hampton, but their vision is a shared one.
"We're building work that goes deeper into the further
reaches," he says. Because the dancers that make up their eight-member
company are so talented, Hampton says they are able to reach an
"exquisiteness of work and also maintain a level of humor, of beauty
and of manipulation of technical resources."
The company formed while working together on Carmina
Barana for the Portland Opera. What the dancers experienced
was so powerful they stayed together. "When you insert yourself
inside a work that deeply, there's such a powerful channeling of
a pure creative spirit that it's a direct conduit from the greater
powers of the universe," says Hampton.
The work was not only powerful and spiritual, but
also irreverant, he says. "We found humor in it. In the beauty and
the tragedy of it." The dancers found it "such a rich experience,"
they've performed it several times. "Every time it's a cathartic
event." Carmina Barana will be performed again in Portland
in the spring.
Meanwhile, other BodyVox works encompass a broader
range of movement, but with the same wide palette of emotions conveyed
by the company of ballet-trained modern dancers against a backdrop
of movement, color, shape and sound. Works range from classical
forms and music one minute to hip-hop and silly the next. The point,
says Hampton, is "to keep the audience off-balance."
Eugene audiences will have a chance to witness BodyVox's
strength and spectacle when the company performs Reverie,
on Jan. 25 at the Hult. Reverie explores the theme of beauty,
with movement, film, wild costumes and humor. In addition to the
artistry inherent in BodyVox's shows, Hampton says, "strength serves
the form." Because all of the dancers in the company engage in such
rigorous training, they company is able to push the limits of physical
expression. Classical ballet dancers may leap, but BodyVox dancers
fly through the air using bungee cords.
"It's classical, but filtered through our own sensibility.
We're not ballet and not going to be. But that's always there for
us."
It was Roland's idea to "break out the bungee cords,"
says Hampton. "It solves the problem of normal flying where you
have to have a counterbalance and someone operating it."
Reverie is impressionistic, with an eclectic
array of music ranging from Ravel and Debussy to the Bulgarian Women's
Chorus and naturally, Johnny Cash. The show's at 8 pm, Saturday,
Jan. 25 at the Hult.
Corndogging
It
School
lunches still lack nutritional substance, balance.
By
John Husby
Every weekday at lunchtime, more than 18,000 Eugene
schoolchildren herd into cafeterias in their search for something
to satisfy their hunger. For some kids, school lunch will be the
best food they get all day; but for a growing number of parents,
school officials and dieticians, school cafeteria food lacks both
balance and nutrition.
"Kids need more fruits, vegetables, beans and whole
grains and fewer greasy hamburgers, chicken nuggets and French fries,"
says dietician Jen Keller, R.D, of the Physicians Committee for
Responsible Medicine (PCRM). "We've got to get more low-fat and
vegetarian meals on the school menus." PCRM calls typical school
lunches "Weapons of Mass Destruction" in its public service ads.
In Eugene public kindergartens, the standard lunch
entrée menu alternates between spaghetti with meatballs and
cheese, hamburgers with potato wedges, and sloppy joes. Milk is
served to complement all breakfast, lunch, and afternoon meals.
In elementary, middle, and high schools, lunch rotates among Western
bacon burgers, Texas cowboy burgers, meatball sandwiches, hot dogs,
and corndogs.
Local nutritionist Rita Ann says an important distinction
exists between food and nutrition. For example, one local high school
labels an index card-sized serving of shredded iceberg lettuce with
ranch dressing a "salad." Ann notes that iceberg lettuce is composed
mostly of water and has little nutritional value compared to darker
greens.
The
Free Lunch
The Federal Free and Reduced Lunch Program subsidizes
29 percent of meals for Eugene schoolchildren. The school district
is reimbursed $2 for every student whose household income qualifies
for the program. But even though it's "free," the USDA-administered
program has been criticized for subsidizing the nation's sagging
meat and dairy industries while paying little attention to the nutritional
value of school lunches.
In 2001, the USDA spent $350 million on surplus
beef and cheese for the school program. The shared agenda between
the USDA and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association has also
currently escalated under the Bush administration as Dale Moore,
the cattlemen's former lobbyist, now serves as chief of staff to
Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman.
District 4J's Nutrition Services Director John Roedl
says so far this year the district has received $120,000 in program
commodities for meat, and only $50,000 for fruits and vegetables,
most of which are canned or frozen. All baked goods and fresh produce
come from a separate small budget. Roedl says it is often a "task"
to meet the USDA nutritional standards under the tight budget and
"compromise" is needed in order to do so. However Roedl also insists
that school lunches are getting healthier from three years ago when
he started his position and pizza was served every other day. The
current menu has also reduced the number of red meat entrées
in favor of more poultry and pork.
Some dieticians believe school districts continue
to preserve the status quo in menu planning because it's familiar.
Known as the "traditional food based menu planning," the system
requires servings of meat, dairy, vegetable and grains without regard
to the menu's total nutritional value. Several other menu approach
options are available, including the "nutrient standard menu approach,"
which uses a computer-based menu planning system, called "NuMenues,"
analyzing the nutrient content of food items automatically while
menus are being planned.
Corporate
Lunch
Today school districts and older students have the
option of the corporate lunch. Taco Time Express is unable to participate
in the federal program because it is "un-analyzable," but still
looms in the cafeteria of South Eugene High School. Additionally,
across the nation soft drink and snack bar vending machines now
pervade 98.2 percent of senior high schools, and 73.9 percent of
middle schools.
The 4J district has recently announced that it will
consider contracting out its food services program after the June
expiration of its contract with Aramark. Local labor activists say
the contracting will not only hurt classified workers, but is also
likely to compromise the nutritional value of meals.
This year the National School Lunch Program is up
for reauthorization for the first time since 1998, and few expect
that Congress will pass any significant reforms. But the local Headstart
program is working to create a gardening project in collaboration
with local farmer John Sunquist to provide additional, nutritional
meals for preschoolers. A national movement toward organic and vegetarian
school lunches is also growing and has caught the attention of local
parent groups. The local charter Village School reportedly now serves
all vegetarian school lunches, but the ingredients are not organic.
For more information on school lunches, visit www.choiceusa.netor
www.healthyschoollunches.orgor
www.pcrm.org